This review is based on the final retail version of The Chronicles of Crime 1400. We were provided a copy of the game by Lucky Duck Games for the purpose of this review. We have not been paid for the review.
Chronicles of Crime 1400
1-4 players
Age 14+
Designed by David Cicurel and
Wojciech Grajkowski
Published by Lucky Duck Games
It’s an exaggeration to say that digital content and apps are
controversial in boardgames, but it is fair to say that
they’re crowd splitters. Between fears
of not being able to play a game when digital support is removed and having to
hand over part of your device to a company, however trusted, there is some
degree of resistance from even those willing to accept the concept. Added to that the fact that many app
integrations boil down to glorified timers and a lot of gamers only play games
to get devices off the table, games with integrated apps will have some people
giving a game the side eye. The Chronicles
of Crime series has arguably been the counter to that position, being one of
the premiere app-based tabletop integrations.
The latest installment of the series places players in the 1400s as a
vision experiencing semi mystical investigator in a fairly non-specific
medieval world, so how well does using a piece of 21st century
technology to look into a 15th century world work?
Gameplay in Chronicles of Crime is reasonably
intuitive, and what mechanics there are players are guided through by the well
written and clear tutorial in the app.
Play consists of scanning QR codes on cards to gain information, either
by looking at an item or interviewing a suspect when they can be asked about an
item or individual in turn. Scenes can
be checked directly through looking at an image of a location and picking out
interesting objects. Each additional
scan takes game time, when players think they have solved the mystery they can
offer to present their solution to the app, which will ask a series of
questions. Answer them correctly, having
taken as little time as possible, and while managing to pick up certain objects
along the way, for the best possible score.
The first weird quibble I have is with that learning
tutorial scenario. I understand why it’s
there, to hand hold through learning the game so that someone doesn’t have to
do the donkey work of grinding through the rulebook before presenting the game
to the team. It’s there to make learning
fun and social. The issue I have is that
splendid though it is, it’s clearly a watered-down version of the main game
with a simple puzzle that still takes half an hour to get through. The rulebook still needs to be read and
referred to occasionally so it feels a little like a wasted play session slowly
going through a fairly simple scanning flow system which was clear from the
rulebook.
The physical game itself is clearly a high-end
product, with lots of custom art, stacks of cards and a thick highly useful
plastic inlay. Which is why a couple of
weird choices stick out, first is a player board made of thin card which due to
being folded up in the box resolutely refuses to sit flat on the tabletop
without being weighted down, which is made worse since its one job is to act as
a mat for cards that inevitably skid around when one end of the board pops
up. The other is the secondary clear
plastic overlay inlay which is the first I’ve come across in my memory of
gaming. Essentially, it’s a large piece
of clear plastic that sits over the components in the box, presumably to keep
the cards from skipping from their intended slots during unusually violent
transporting. The thing is, the main
inlay is well designed so that I don’t think this is a huge concern. Added to that, the cards are (apart from two
types) all different sizes, so re-ordering if there is mixing is extremely
simple, and since all the cards are not only free of information but actually
multi use due to the all information on them being contained in the QR codes
there’s no confusion or missed surprises from seeing their faces ahead of
time. As such in a period where many
companies are working harder and harder to cut down superfluous plastic in
their games this fairly substantial piece of plastic to no real purpose seems a
bizarre decision.
Generally, the new theme for the series seems a little
peculiar. Previously the series has hit
the modern police procedural, which makes total sense, the noir detective thriller,
which is another detective classic area.
It moved on to 80s flashback kids in mysteries, which while less classic
is at least heavily fashionable.
Investigating the 1400s then seems a little bit odd. It’s not totally unprecedented, but it is odd. Particularly since a large part of the
justification for the app integration in the Chronicles of Crime series is that
it allows essentially infinite content to be presented for the same set of
physical components. When the creator
then presents four sets of physical components with two more in the works that
justification starts to look more and more flimsy.
So, how effective is the app integration? Again, that’s probably a matter of personal
choice. I know that some people see a
page of text in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and their eyes roll, on
the other hand I know some people who approach that with gusto since it means
they get a good long run of reading during which they’ll get to do all the
voices and everything. If you’re one of
the first sorts of people then the Chronicles of Crime app version of this
style of game is built for you as passages of information come in one or two
sentence pieces, if you’re one of the second type then the app has probably
stolen one of your favourite parts of the game.
It is possible that the app could support actor’s voices, which would
make this series a much more accessible game for those with vision and learning
difficulties.
Ultimately the primary mechanic of the app is one of
scanning QR codes, which means that a solid third of the game is spent hovering
a phone slightly up and down over a QR code.
It might be a personal thing, but I can look up a passage in a book more
quickly than I can scan a QR code, and with far less frustration when I happen to
have flipped to the wrong page than when I move a camera back and forth by
millimeter increments muttering about why it won’t work. I’ll talk about the game being better played
solo in a little bit, but for the record, the single biggest reason that its
best played solo is because that way you don’t have three other people asking
if you want them to do it after four seconds of the phone failing to instantly
focus.
Another issue with the app is the sheer grind of
scanning in and out of interviews. At times
players will go to a location, scanning a code, see someone they want to talk
to, scanning a code, and ask them about an object, scanning a code, to be told
they don’t know anything about it. Fair
enough, on to the next witness, who states that the previous person does know
about the object, so you need to go back and ask them about the object with
this new information, which means backing out and scanning, and scanning
again. It might not sound major, but
when you’ve scanned your 20th QR code in 40 minutes it starts to
grate on the nerves. When the first
witness doesn’t react to the new information anyway, it makes that little vein
in the corner of your forehead begin to stick out. A lot of the time the upshot is to end up
asking everyone about everything just to save the rigmarole of backing out and
scanning back up later, which considering that’s the basis of the game’s score
is a little of an issue.
The biggest benefit of the app mechanically then is
that it allows items to be cross referenced and compared in a physically
elegant fashion without needing to be done in a mechanically elegant one. To explain that a little, to compare to
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective there would often be passages where
players might interview a given witness or suspect because they thought they
would offer information about a given item or location, only to have them
ramble on about something entirely different.
In Chronicles of Crime you can show a certain witness a certain item and
get their specific response on exactly that object, offering more specific and
multiple routes through the game. To do
this physically without the app would require a book length table of mind
destroying tiresomeness. In theory the
upshot should be far fewer frustrating dead-ends during play. In practice those dead-ends still crop up
with irritating regularity.
While not multiplayer solitaire, there is sometimes a
sense of playing a social solitaire with the app version. This comes up most strongly in two places,
reading out of the cards and scanning of the scenes. As previously stated, the shorter passages
make it harder for players to get their roleplaying/amateur dramatics teeth
into the imparting of information, but it also means that there is less of an
info dump to discuss when a passage is read out. When reading out a chunky passage with
several bits of information, some of which may need noting down, the result is
that a team discussion will need to take place at the end. When a shorter scene results in fewer pieces
of information its far more natural for the reader to simply explain to the
rest of the group what the next step is and that they’re taking it. The result can be that in Chronicles of Crime
if the particular scenario is clear to the reader they can end up chaining
cards and scans through swathes of what is meant to be gameplay. Worse, if a scene is short enough that they can
read it and reach a conclusion more quickly than they can read it aloud the
impetus can be to skip the whole reading aloud section and just make the
choice, sometimes generally summarizing for the listening audience, and when
they don’t the reading aloud can feel like a bit of a box ticking job rather
than a social experience. The only
“mandatory” player interaction is when looking at a scene within the app. The rules suggest that one player scans and
calls out what they see while other players search the deck of objects. The issue is that it’s often more effective
and efficient for the scanner to look and then go through the object deck,
pulling out anything that they saw since the object cards act as possible clues,
meaning that the one piece of theoretical interaction can feel like something
of a disadvantage. This also only really
works as social interaction with 2 players, if you play with 4 people what the
other 2 are meant to do beats me. Which
brings me to the player count generally which is 1-4; why does it stop at
4? Nothing about the game suggests that
it is better or worse at accommodating 4 players than 5, or 6, or frankly,
100. Generally, the game feels like a
pretty good solo game, but it’s really not a multi-player game.
Tracking back to Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
for a moment, one of the things that I most love about that game is that I can
play it sat in an armchair while one friend sits on an overstuffed sofa and a
third lounges on a day bed (I don’t have a day bed, but I can dream). For such a free form game Sherlock Holmes is
surprisingly compact. One player grabs
the map and the directory, one the casebook and one a pad and pen and you can
sit at opposite ends of the lounge, sprawled and smoking Turkish tobacco if you
so choose. Everyone can have a job and input;
everyone can venture opinions on whether the “victim” is actually the criminal
in bad drag. Chronicles of Crime doesn’t
really manage that, the only thing that will sprawl here is the game layout,
and all players that want to interact directly with any of the objects in the
game will find themselves tied to whichever table you decide to smother with
it. You can only play with one app at a
time, so there isn’t even the option for multiple players scanning cards on
different devices simultaneously. The
most immersive thing about Sherlock Holmes is that I can generally picture
Holmes and Watson sat around much as I and my fellow players are sat around
playing the game. I’m not sure quite how
the protagonist in Chronicles of Crime 1400 and his faithful dog sit around,
but I’m betting it’s not hunched over a table covered with cards trying to hold
a smartphone still.
In relation to the aforementioned hood wearing vision
having protagonist (you have visions at the start of each case represented by
cards showing snapshots relevant to the story ahead, these aren’t QR code based
so presumably will be re-used if later cases are added to the game app and can
give clues as to what to investigate), one of the more minor issues with the
game is that their authority is, at best, poorly defined. In the original Chronicles of Crime game
players took the part of members of the established police force, it doesn’t
seem a stretch to say that if they then prove that someone did it, that person
gets arrested. In 1400 instead players
are a slightly goth looking outsider who occasionally wraps up a case by
accusing major authority figures of involvement in some fairly serious crimes
on what is, even by modern standards, pretty circumstantial evidence. The idea that a vision experiencing outsider
accusing their betters in the middle ages without ending up on the wrong end of
a toasty stake-based encounter after a not unreasonable accusation of
witchcraft requires at best some suspension of disbelief. Finally, one of the great things about
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is the framing device, in the end,
Sherlock knows the answer, he puts you through some hoops for his own
amusement, but we all understand that its him who wraps things up at the
denouement like the big ol’ drama queen he is.
Conversely, in 1400 it’s the high and holy app that takes that
part. At the end, there’s a button to
click and everything gets explained. Who
is doing the explaining? Who knows the
answer if not you, the apparently vision powered genius investigator?
All that said, if you’re picking up Chronicles of
Crime as a solo experience and you’re happy to sprawl across a six-foot table
for an evening, scanning things in your phone and picking through an
investigation, it’s a pretty reasonable price for a premium solo experience and
works as an interactive murder mystery, which is what it is. If you’re looking to share the experience
with someone else, or aren’t sure if you want a game with an app integration,
you might want to think twice.
Personally, having played through the game, I’ll not be keeping it
around in the hope of new cases being added to the app.
We were not paid for this review
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